Lifting her hand, she rang the doorbell, and almost immediately heard the clip of heels against tiles. A tall, slender woman dressed in mustard-coloured linen trousers and a black halter-neck T-shirt answered the door. Her hair was black and tucked neatly behind her ears, her eyes were carefully made up. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. On Lily, a fag end stuck to the top lip would have looked slovenly. But somehow, on this woman it looked impossibly chic. Perhaps, Lily thought for a fleeting moment, she ought to take up smoking too.
‘Bonjour,’ the woman said, after taking the cigarette out and blowing the smoke upwards, politely keeping it away from her guest.
‘Bonjour, je m’appelle Lily,’ she began. ‘J’ai une chambre ici?’
‘You can speak English if you want,’ the woman interrupted, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
‘Oh, thank you. I am learning French,’ she said, apologetically.
‘It’s fine. I am afraid I don’t speak English very well,’ the woman said. ‘You will have to excuse me.’
‘It’s great. I mean, you’re speaking perfectly.’
An amused shrug. ‘You are Madame Butterworth?’
‘Yes – but call me Lily, please.’
‘OK, Lily. Enchanté. I am Chloé.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Do you want any ’elp with your bags?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Lily said. ‘I’ll just bring in one for now.’ She walked to the back of the car, popped the boot and extracted the wheeled case, lifting it by the handle, and climbed up the four stone steps to the front door. Chloé moved back slightly, gesturing her inside. As Lily walked past, Chloé dropped her half-smoked cigarette and ground it under her kitten heel on the stone step.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I should quit thees shit.’ She smiled and gave yet another shrug, indicating that she actually had no intention of doing so. Lily had never realised shoulders could be so expressive.
‘It’s fine,’ Lily replied.
‘I will give you le tour,’ Chloé said, moving past her with a waft of perfume and cigarette smoke, her linen trousers and fitted top perfectly accentuating her tall, elegant frame. Lily, feeling tatty in comparison in her skinny jeans and hoodie, trotted after her, already planning the type of outfit she might change into as soon as she’d had a shower and settled in.
She followed Chloé up polished mahogany stairs to the second floor, where her host opened a door with ‘La Chambre Bleue’ painted on it in delicate script. ‘This is yours,’ she said, nodding towards the interior.
Inside, the room was indeed extremely blue. The bedding was embroidered with blue silk flowers, the rug on the floor was faded – possibly antique – and patterned with violets and bluebells. The shutters were open and the window half cracked, so a small breeze entered – enough to move the shimmering voiles at the window. Above the four-poster bed was a small decorative chandelier, its glass sprinkling jewelled, rainbow lights across the bed and onto a little dressing table.
‘Oh wow,’ said Lily. ‘This is beautiful.’
A shrug. ‘It eez OK.’
‘I love the whole shabby chic look!’
‘I am sorry, the… what?’
‘The shabby chic, you know – faded grandeur, upcycled antiques. You must have worked hard on this,’ she said, hoping that Chloé might be able to point her in the direction of a decent chalk-paint stockist.
‘Non, this was my grandmother’s,’ said Chloé shaking her head. ‘The furniture has been here since one hundred years. I have done nothing.’
‘Oh.’ Lily nodded, chastened. ‘Sorry.’
‘De rien,’ Chloé said, ‘It does not matter.’
‘Well, thank you. It’s gorgeous.’
‘Oui, I think so too,’ Chloé said with a smile. ‘The whole house is – as you say – beautiful. I am lucky. My grandmother passed it to me from ten years.’
Lily nodded, wishing she had the confidence to accept a compliment like Chloé, whether about her house or her taste or her shoes, without arguing against it, or saying something like: What? This old thing?
‘You would like a coffee?’
‘Oh, yes please.’
‘I will make. Come down since five minutes.’
‘I will, thank you.’
The minute Chloé closed the door and Lily heard her footsteps clip down the wooden stairs, she flung herself on the bed and sank into its feathered eiderdown. She gazed at the window, through which, from her vantage point, she could see a light blue sky, sprinkled with small, unthreatening clouds and just the very tops of buildings and trees.